After interviewing many marketers for different positions at my company and meeting marketing professionals regularly at events, I came to the conclusion that there are two types of marketers:

Passionate Marketers

Job Marketers

The first group is comprised of those that, as the name suggests, have a real passion for marketing. They read about marketing, they talk about marketing outside work, they go to events and try to educate themselves. They often participate in discussion forums and might even have a blog. Everyone in the family knows they do marketing, friends ask them for some advice and they often times talk to telemarketers trying to sell newspaper subscriptions at eight o’ clock at night because they think it’s fun. Telemarketers often regret the call because the passionate marketer keeps analyzing their sales pitch instead of buying something.

Job Marketers are, unfortunately, the majority out there. I’m not sure whether it starts in school, their first full time paying job or it’s just the way they are. This bunch sees marketing only as a job. If they were offered more money to create TPS reports they would switch to doing it in a heartbeat. Outside work they don’t want to check out a blogabout the newest lead nurturing technology, or fly out to attend a marketing conference. They see these activities as “work” and as such, shouldn’t be performed after 5:29pm.

Funny thing is, Passionate Marketers are not necessarily better at marketing than Job Marketers. Both can be very effective at what they do.However, from what I’ve seen, passion makes some rise quicker through the ranks and get accolades, while the simply “employed”stay for years at the same company and position because, hey, that’s just a job.

When hiring someone for a marketing position, it’s important to know these different types exist. Hiring marketing people is tough enough as it is, one has to understand the type of person they need for each specific position. If you want a marketing assistant that will be still with you 30 years from now, a Job Marketer may be just what you need. Who do I want to work with? Passionate Marketers. From interns to the VP. Not that the other group wouldn’t be fun (after all this is a characteristic about how they feel towards marketing in their careers, not their personalities), but when you have people who are passionate about what they do, it tends to rub off and the whole team benefits. We need more people who are passionate about what they do.

From Tony The Tiger, Trix Rabbit and Energizer Bunny to Ronald McDonald and even John McCain (?!) brand mascots are a common tool to promote your product or service. More recently even Twitter mascots have been showing up as a company’s public face.

The good ones are those that you don’t even think about until you decide to wear your marketer hat. That’s what makes them memorable.

A recent article I read on Harvard Business Review, “ Aflac’s CEO Explains How He Fell For The Duck” made me think about brand messaging and the use of mascots. The article is great because it gives you an insider’s view of how the famous Aflac duck came to being and the challenges Aflac’s CEO had to overcome to get it adopted.

The first Aflac duck debuted in 2000. The company reported $9.7 billion (US and Japan combined) that year, up $1 billion from the previous year. In 2008, revenues were up to $16.6 billion. Amos credits this increase mostly due to the branding initiatives related to the duck, an amazing feat for any brand mascot. Here are some highlights of the Aflac duck’s impact:

First year after the duck’s introduction, sales were up by 29%.

Name recognition increased 67% after two years of running the commercials. Today the name recognition is 90%.

The duck has 165,000 facebook fans in the US.

In two months 100,000 people posted spoofs of the Japanese duck’s song online.

How do you create a successful brand mascot? I particularly like the tips a FastCompany article, “Brands with character”, gives: